The leaders of Canada, Mauritania, Lebanon and Montenegro have sent their condolences to Türkiye in the wake of the catastrophic earthquakes that left over 40,000 people in the country’s southeastern region earlier this month.
Montenegro’s President Milo Dukanovic and Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani called President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the phone to “offer their condolences for those who lost their lives in the earthquake,” according to a statement issued by Türkiye’s Communications Directorate Saturday.
The directorate added that Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau conveyed condolences during telephone calls with Erdoğan.
“The leaders voiced their support for Türkiye and solidarity with the Turkish nation,” read the statement.
Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh too expressed “his get well soon wishes over the earthquake.”
At least 40,642 people were killed and over 108,000 others injured after the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes struck southern Türkiye within less than 10 hours on Feb. 6, affecting around 13 million people, according to the latest official figures. The toll is expected to soar, with some 345,000 apartments in the country now known to have been destroyed and many still missing.
The earthquakes, centered in Kahramanmaraş, also hit nine other provinces-Hatay, Gaziantep, Adıyaman, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakır, Kilis, Osmaniye and Şanlıurfa.
Several countries in the region, as far as Lebanon and the island of Cyprus, also felt the strong tremors, with neighboring Syria taking the more significant damage after Türkiye.
The war-ravaged country’s death toll has climbed above 5,800, with nearly 15,000 injured, a figure that has not changed for several days, while the World Food Programme (WFP) pressures authorities in the northwest to stop blocking access to the area as it seeks to help hundreds of thousands of people ravaged by earthquakes.
